London's cyclists miss out on £41 million as Conservatives refuse to back budget amendment

Conservative London Assembly Members have refused to back a motion proposed by the Green Party’s Jenny Jones that would have seen £41 million added to cash available for cycling in the capital. Ms Jones has described it as “a great opportunity missed.”

As we reported last week, the proposed amendment to Mayor Boris Johnson’s budget would have taken spend on cycling in London to 2 per cent of Transport for London’s budget, in line with the proportion of journeys made by bicycle in the city.

London Cycling Campaign had urged Londoners to write to their Assembly Members to lobby them to back the motion, with more than 20,000 people doing so.

Ms Jones said on Twitter this morning: “Can't get the amendment thru to fund #cycling properly. Tories pretend sympathy but won't vote for it.

“We cld have done all the amendments in 4 mins. @MayorWatch Propose, 2nd, move to a vote.

“Assembly Tories all voted against #cycling amendment. Cld have made a difference.

“A great opportunity missed ...”

Green Party press officer Ian Wingrove added: “Conservatives on cycling budget "not saying never" Willing to work on future schemes even if they go "beyond" the Mayors budget.”

The motion, which would have taken total spend on cycling in the coming financial year to £145 million, had the backing of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Assembly Members, who together hold 16 of the 25 seats.

However, a majority of two thirds – 17 members – is required for a motion seeking to amend the mayor’s budget to be passed.

The motion was one of a number of proposed changes to the budget tabled this morning, none of which was passed.

Spectator contributing editor and Guido Fawkes blogger Harry Cole took to Twitter to ask the London Assembly Labour group, which holds 12 seats, “So you screwed this morning up?”

Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.

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northstar[1107 posts]4 years ago

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As per usual nothing will happen for anything other than motor vehicles with this individual as Mayor.

For a bit of context, 41 million is roughly one quarter of the price of just one of those F-35 jet fighters that the navy and air force have placed massive orders for, so that the admirals and air vice marshals can hold their heads high when dining with their American counterparts (and also might save the lives of one or two pilots, but surely a tiny fraction of the numbers of cyclists that this money could have saved, if spent wisely.)

These voters are the same people if you came across them in a pub they would say that cyclists should pay road tax and insurance, not to mention pass a test. They don't understand the concept of pollution tax or that people don't get killed by being hit by a bike.
The conservatives used to think that common people don't even deserve to vote because of their ignorance. I think you'll find that they are the ignorant ones here.

When JJ first raised this issue at Mayor's Questions, Boris replied "OK, so how would you spend the £41m?". It's because there was no compelling ask, just "more money please" that made it easy for the Conservatives to vote it down. Come on campaigners, time for a shopping list.